Getting Schools Involved !

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on April 22, 2009 at 11:09pm

We should contact the school near the park although I dont know the name of it.
We should contact St. Anthonys, they have there own gardens that they grow food for
charity, but they might want to lend a hand with there expertise.
We should contact the downtown school.
None of this should be done with out a city or parks dept. representative, so that this
shows that we are a legitamate garden that is sponcered and supported by the city of
Des Moines.
Pete.

Permalink Reply by Christine L. Pardee on April 26, 2009 at 10:47am

All ~

The state of Iowa has a "Farm to School" program co-administered by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and the Iowa Department of Education. The goal of the program includes promoting and supporting the development of school gardens. There is currently $ available to community-based organizations to start "Farm to School Chapters". To date, there have been no entities in any urban center in Iowa that have applied to be a chapter. All of the Chapters are in rural communities. This $ is "low hanging fruit" no pun intended. Check out the Farm to School website and contact Maury Wills if interested in applying for $. I serve on the Council and will also be glad to serve as a resource for you to help you find $ for this project - as a volunteer.

http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/AgDiversification/farmToSchoolPr...

http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/AgDiversification/farmToSchoolCo...

Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on April 26, 2009 at 4:40pm

Christine this is fantastic, I went to the web site and downloaded the forms. Now all we
need to do is get a school involved, there is a school near the park but I dont
know the name of it or its location. My knowledge of that part of town is some what poor.
It would be of great help if we could get together and go over the forms for this program
and put together an action plan. We should also talk to the downtown school.
Pete.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Corbett on April 26, 2009 at 11:06pm

So I've been talking with Elvin McDonald (director of friends of the DM Botanical Center) and it turns out the the Botanical center is also starting up a Community Garden this year and has been working the Boy's and Girl's Club and one of the local schools to make up most of their plot holder group (it's not the school that is to the SE of our garden). I will be meeting with them this week to talk more about how our two gardens could possibly work together on different things like setting up garden education classes and community outreach. I think the botanical center would be a great help in getting us in touch with many of the various garden clubs throughout the metro area for offering classes or teaching sessions for out gardeners.

Permalink Reply by Drew Matthew Maifeld on April 27, 2009 at 12:26am

Emily Zach has a son who attends the downtown school - I had planned to talk with John Johnson, the principal and I think I will still do that but perhaps Emily can see if any of the teachers or after school programs are interested.


Also - Peter, will you find out the name of the nearest school and share that with everyone ? ? ? I think we should try extra hard to help them feel welcome.

Permalink Reply by Drew Matthew Maifeld on April 27, 2009 at 12:30am

social media - - -

1. Is anyone big into using facebook ? Perhaps we can get someone to create a downtown garden facebook group...

2. TWITTER - i use twitter fairly frequently and will share this with the local downtown twitter's - you all should do that same...

3. YOU TUBE - "lets make sure we get youtube to come tape some of the event's on the kickoff date" ... :) I'll bring a flip camera and upload it to this site and to youtube but again - feel free to do the same !

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Corbett on April 27, 2009 at 10:07am

Update: The Botanical Center's new Community Garden has teamed up with students and families from the George Washington Carver Elementary School just north of them and the Boys and Girls clubs of central Iowa. They will have 20 raised beds at 10'x10' for the students and families and an additional 27 raised beds that will be devoted to having an array of tomatoes, okra, herbs, and flowers. They have been working with the students since last fall but their first big planting day for the new plots will be this Wednesday, April 29.

Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on April 28, 2009 at 2:20am

Jonathan you should let them know about the ag diversification/farm to school program that Christine
Pardee is involved with. Also I know Elvin Mcdonald, I talked to him about his program and it is
very good.
Pete.
Jonathan Corbett said:

Update: The Botanical Center's new Community Garden has teamed up with students and families from the George Washington Carver Elementary School just north of them and the Boys and Girls clubs of central Iowa. They will have 20 raised beds at 10'x10' for the students and families and an additional 27 raised beds that will be devoted to having an array of tomatoes, okra, herbs, and flowers. They have been working with the students since last fall but their first big planting day for the new plots will be this Wednesday, April 29.

Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on April 28, 2009 at 2:23am

I will Try.
Pete.

Drew Matthew Maifeld said:

Emily Zach has a son who attends the downtown school - I had planned to talk with John Johnson, the principal and I think I will still do that but perhaps Emily can see if any of the teachers or after school programs are interested.


Also - Peter, will you find out the name of the nearest school and share that with everyone ? ? ? I think we should try extra hard to help them feel welcome.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Corbett on April 28, 2009 at 2:18pm

I spoke with Elvin McDonald from the Botanical Center today and got a tour of their garden plots. Theirs are already constructed and will be planted tomorrow (Wed 29th). If anyone wants to see one way of constructing plots I suggest driving by there and checking them out. The plots are toward the back of the parking lot between the greenhouses and the highway. They used logs to form the border of each plot and filled them in with compost. They used a bunch of mulch to serve as pathways which overall, seemed to make for a fairly clean looking setup.
I've attached an article about the garden from the botanical center newsletter which talks about some of the funding and material partners they have worked with.

Attachments:

• Botanical Center Community Garden.pdf, 1.9 MB

Permalink Reply by Peter Michael Sherinian on April 29, 2009 at 11:12am

Jonathan the Botanical Center article was very interesting. it mentioned seed saver exchange. I wonder if we can get seeds from "seed saver exchange", would Elvin Mcdonald know about that. You might ask him.
Pete.